Missions abroad 9 native language. She is transferred to a stretcher and driven to the airport by ambulance. Everything proceeds without a hitch. Helga Leistritz is relieved. After a 1½-hour flight, the Rega jet lands at Zurich-Kloten Airport, where an ambulance is already waiting to transport her to Baden Cantonal Hospital. Happy to be alive despite a lengthy recuperation
has disappeared. Her left shoulder and left elbow are painful, not to mention her right lower leg, from which a bone is protruding. The ambulance swiftly takes her to a nearby hospital. She is x-rayed at around 10.30pm; an hour later, the doctors start to perform the emergency operation. They operate on her shoulder, elbow and lower leg until 4.30am. When in Rome, do as the Romans do
Before she has the x-ray, Mrs Leistritz is able to telephone her husband, and both agree that he should contact Swiss Air-Rescue. While she is being operated on in Rome, he telephones Rega’s Operations Centre at Zurich Airport. The staff there deal with him in a very friendly and professional manner, as his wife later recounts. The repatriation mission quickly gets under way. Mr Leistritz is given helpful information, which he passes on to his wife by telephone. For other countries do some things in a way that is incomprehensible to Swiss people. For example, in Italy it is normal for hospital patients to receive no nursing care, nothing to eat or drink, no towels and no other assistance; it is usually family members who are responsible for these tasks. And if you have no relatives to help, it is just bad luck. Fortunately Helga is looked after by a colleague from Rome. A policeman takes away her jewellery and valuables for safekeeping; everything is returned to her later. She is lying in a green room, which she shares with three other women. Apart from the doctors, who wear white coats, all the staff are dressed in green. “Everything was green,” Helga Leistritz recalls. The time she spent in the Roman hospital was something of an odyssey for Helga, who speaks little Italian. Rega’s arrival sparks emotions and relief
The day after her night-time operations seems to last for ever. Luckily her mobile phone is within reach, and her husband tells her that the Rega jet is already airborne. The Rega medical team reach the hospital early that afternoon. The patient is happy, thankful, emotional and relieved when she sees the jet physician and flight nurse. And she is amazed at how well the Rega doctor speaks Italian and can talk to the surgeon who performed the operation in his
The accident in Rome has serious consequences. Helga is hospitalised for more than five weeks, followed by two months of rehabilitation. Her leg develops gangrene (dead tissue) and she is also very anaemic. The healing process is anything but satisfactory; the final wounds only heal after nine months, and then reopen, and to make things worse, screws from the operation on the lower leg bone break. However, with her positive outlook on life, Helga Leistritz takes all this in her stride and does not bemoan her fate. For her life-affirming attitude has already helped her to overcome breast cancer, from which she suffered for several years. Helga Leistritz will need more operations, and for quite some time her days will be ruled by therapy. Yet despite it all, she is grateful and happy, and every day she is thankful to be alive. Ariane Güngerich
The complex break requires complex immobilisation methods
A good year later: flight physician Benedetta Rei und Helga Leistritz are once again reunited in the Rega jet